Seven Steps
by Aitrus5
Summary: Catherine is alone with her thoughts on Prison Island. Sequel to Surveyor


Seven Steps.  
  
I hear the slight whir from the eyepiece as it closes in the twilight, and I open my own. My day has begun. Or has it ended again? I don't know anymore. I pace across the room. Seven steps.  
  
The time he spends watching me is much greater now. I don't know when he manages to sleep.   
  
I eat a bite of the now tasteless fruit and throw it out the window in disgust. My clothes are filthy. The film on my body is like sap. I stare in the mirror.   
  
I don't know what stares back. How long have I been here? My eyes are red and puffy, my cheeks sagging. I swear my hair is greying before my eyes.   
  
In the mirror I see the two who died protecting me, their masks fallen off due to convulsions, thick darts sticking out of their bodies like bones fracturing.  
  
A savior, I am not. If the Moiety were to see me now, they'd no doubt laugh. I doubt even the children would recognize me.  
  
I walk out to the balcony, barred and closed to me. I hear a pair of sunners swimming beyond my ability to see. I wish I could join them. The life of a mere animal. No complexities, no problems, no love to lose, no friends to care for.   
  
I strip and tie my clothes in a bundle, lowering them into the water with my bedsheets. Rather than smelling like myself, I'll smell like salt. Better that than wasting the jugs of fresh water.   
  
Afterwards, I pace some more. Seven steps. I can stretch it out to twelve if I take small steps.   
  
I only have enough water to last four more days. I hope somebody comes soon.  
  
For the thousandth time, I wonder what is happening just a horizon length away. Are the Moiety in chaos without me? It is a disturbing thought, that I have had such an impact on these people's lives when I have been gone all this time.   
  
Gehn at least believes he is a god. He is free from such troublesome thoughts.   
  
I pace. Seven more steps. Soon I will wear a hole in the floor, and can swim to saftey.   
  
The eyepiece whirs. I look up. The bronze eyepiece stares at me unblinking. I stare back at it for a while, then blatantly mouth a curse and stalk off to the balcony.   
  
I tried to smash the lens once. Within an hour, one of his followers had come and darted me with something that left me feeling like my stomach was trying to force itself out of my body. The eye was rebuilt and the feeling passed after several days. I didn't try it again.  
  
So he will watch me. But he will see nothing.   
  
He can't see into my thoughts. I don't know what Atrus's plan is.  
  
I don't know why I'm here.....  
  
Sirrus? Why did you tell me Atrus was on Riven? Achenar, what's going on? What possessed you do that to me?  
  
I fear I will never get to ask these questions. I don't know why. Mother's intuition, as Atrus would call it. His home Age has such quaint expressions.   
  
What if they attempt to follow me? If Gehn captured them...no, that is too dreadful to think!  
  
Seven more steps.  
  
I cannot stand this any longer. Alone with only my thoughts to occupy me. I want to link away. Run from my mind.   
  
The savior is flawed.   
  
I was flawed from the moment I was born. I questioned everything. I believed in the unthinkable. I remembered every one of my dreams. Every one.  
  
Gehn's copying was obviously mistaken when he wrote my sentences.   
  
I laugh to myself. It is all a lie. I am not at fault, I was merely written wrong. I did not abandon my people, and I did not fail my children.  
  
Gehn must wonder what I am laughing about. I wonder if he'll show up soon. I never know when I will awaken to see him leaning against the elevator wall, head tilted sideways, looking at me, with those pale eyes. I thank the Maker that Atrus does not have much of his father in him. And that makes me wonder what he does have.  
  
The air smells faintly of ozone, yet there is no thunderstorm on the horizon. I brace myself in the doorway, and hang on as the ground itself shakes around me. A jug falls to the ground and cracks open, and I curse as the fresh water seeps into the floor. I sink to the ground, my back to the balcony. The tremors fade again, and sounds of the sea resume.  
  
My world is dying.  
  
And I left them here.  
  
No, I cannot think this. I feel nothing.   
  
I don't have the energy to pace anymore. I don't even feel hunger. My stomach is a knot.   
  
The Moiety expect me to act like the Katran of their myths. The misfit who would be a goddess.   
  
In the play, I somehow held open a book and lightning reached out and tore into Gehn with a blaze of glory. The woman who played me was a seductive leader, stealing Atrus away from Gehn, and subverting him into a warrior to lead them to glory. He weilded the Moietey dagger that Anna and I wrote into the Age. I could see the audience looking at the re-enactment, then at me, strange looks on their faces. I shared their discomfort.   
  
I cannot understand how the Moiety have sustained their fervor when Atrus and I have been gone more than 30 years. But they believed I would come back.  
  
I don't know if I ever would have.  
  
I drag myself up. My robes feel like lead weights.  
  
I pace again. Seven steps.   
  
If I do not come back, will the Moiety bring the villagers with them to Tay? And what if I succeed?Am I suppossed to lead them?  
  
Maker help me, I'm not what everybody wants me to be!  
  
What do their prophecies say then? Have I doomed my father to die along with Riven? I did not even get a chance to see him. What of Eti, and the others?   
  
I am numb.  
  
Atrus, don't come here. Don't see me like this. I am crying now. Gehn will be thrilled.  
  
Seven steps.  
  
Gehn will kill you. He'll find a way out of his prison.   
  
How many paces for Riven?   
  
I rage at the camera. Is he watching? I don't know, and I don't care. How many times can I say it? You hear me, you arrogant D'ni wretch, I don't know anything.   
  
I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!  
  
Seven steps.  
  
I have to get out of here. I shake the bars for the hundredth time. I hate this place. I hate it! I once played here as a child, I loathe it now. Now I feel something. Hate is easy to feel.   
  
Maybe the Moiety are planning a rescue attempt. Maybe Atrus will be coming, against all logic. Charging to the rescue, just like in the story books, weilding the Moiety dagger. The ones that don't link to Ages, that is. Maybe I'll be rescued tomorow...maybe I'll get fresh fruit tomorrow. Either way, somebody will come.   
  
I cannot just do nothing...but that is what I must do. I must not give anything away.   
  
One day, my door will open. One day, I will be free. I can think nothing else. Some say hope is the denial of reality. I say it is the inspiration of dreams.  
  
Atrus...I...  
  
Seven steps.  
  
Sirrus....Achenar....  
  
I lay down on my bed, feeling the hard wood through the thin mattress. My back is to the eye. He will get nothing more from me today.  
  
I will try to dream. The eye cannot see that far.   
  
Tomorrow, the day will begin again.  
  
I hope it ends differently.  
  
My eyes close, and the eyepiece does as well. 


End file.
